It was unbelievably sad to hear that 80s new romantic legend Steve Strange had passed away at the premature age of 55. The frontman of Visage was not only a great artist and performer, but also a fantastic character and a bloody good person to talk to, as I did once or twice. In fact we had a great chat about the state of modern popular music, and agreed on many points. Up until last year I was only aware of their still-astonishing megahit 'Fade To Grey', but after finding a vinyl copy of the self-titled 1980 LP 'Visage', I wondered why I hadn't investigated more of this music before. For the price of £1 it was indeed an absolute bargain.His former musical partner Rusty Egan said that they had been "friends for 25 years and foes for less than 5 years... The good times outweigh the bad...". In a brilliant article that you can read HERE, The Guardian paid tribute to Steve, writing that "there were more famous new romantic bands than Visage, and maybe even one or two singles as good as Fade to Grey, but the late Steve Strange’s group embodied the style more than anyone else."
RIP Steve.
